If the federal government allows state governments to collect sales tax revenue from online purchases it could help their bottom lines.

Brown explains, “Projections are this would add millions of dollars a year to the treasuries of state governments.”

Technically online consumers should declare the online purchases at the end of the year on their tax statements, but many don’t – and there’s not much the states can do about it.

Brown points out, “Frankly, state governments probably have neither the administrative ability, the administrative resources, nor the political will to go start auditing individual taxpayers for this purpose.”

Brown adds, “Sales tax in this country is becoming unfair for locally based merchants. Merchants that are primarily selling to consumers on a real-time basis in a real store versus merchants that are simply hawking their wares strictly online.”

If the federal government manages to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, it could correct some of these perceived imbalances.